When a poll was taken late last year to mark the 50th anniversary of Ireland’s popular music charts, the song the public chose as its No. 1 of all time wasn’t by U2 or Sinead O’Connor or Thin Lizzy.

Saw Doctors, with Leo Moran second from right

It was “I Useta Lover,” The Saw Doctors’ raucous and bawdy song about a former lover that topped the Emerald Isle’s charts for nine weeks in 1990 and became the country’s all-time best-selling single.

So why, after 25 years as a band and 14 Top 10 Irish hits later, hasn’t The Saw Doctors become as big a band as U2, or even Thin Lizzy? Instead of stadiums, in the United States the Irish rock band plays small venues such as Musikfest Cafe in Bethlehem, where it stops March 5.

Founder and guitarist Leo Moran, in a recent telephone call from his home in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, talked about the band’s career and its new album “25:25,” a compilation of 25 of the bands best-loved songs from its 25 years, from “I Useta Lover” to a collaboration with Petula Clark on her 1964 hit “Downtown” that was a surprise hit on the Irish charts last year.

Here’s a transcript of the call:

LEO MORAN: “We’ve been to Bethlehem a couple of times before.” [They played Musikfest in 2003 and 2005 and Celtic Cultural Alliance’s Winter Classic in 2008]

Leo Moran

LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: That’s right, and we’re looking forward to having you back. So let’s start by you telling me about the new album, “25/25.” Obviously it’s in recognition of your 25 years. But tell me about it.

“It’s not really a new album. What it really is, it’s our second ‘Best of.’ Our first album in the states was (1997’s) “Sing a Powerful Song,” which is kind of a best of our first three albums on this side of the water. So this is just kind of like the second string of favorites, if you like. Which is an interesting collection for me, because a lot of the songs on this one would be more of my favorites than the more obvious ones that made the first greatest-hits collection. So I kind of like this one.I didn’t choose it, now. It was a friend of ours, really, that chose the tracks, and I think you’re better off to let somebody else choose them. Very often, we’re the worst judges.” [Laughs]

I understand that! OK, so tell me the process. The first one, you go with the obvious; the best-selling ones, the most popular ones. But do you know the thought process behind how the songs for the second one were chosen?

“It was kind of like – well, a great friend of ours who works on our computer and Internet and Facebook stuff, and he just proposed a song list, and that’s more of less what it ended up being, because he’s been a great fans of ours and supporter of ours and he’s always been a good judge of what we’re doing right and what we don’t do very well [Laughs]. So it was just a matter of having that collection together.

“It’s very popular. In this day and age, we actually have an amazing amount of people looking for a CD hard copy of the album. We thought originally we’d just release it on download like so many other things at the moment. But it didn’t really work for us. Maybe it’s the age profile of our audience. That might be one of the factors – that people want to have the CD to hold in their hands. We have, not a huge demand, but a strong demand for it to be printed up as a CD.”

Yeah, and I think you’re probably right about that. I mean, I think the people who have been with you all these years, we still – I include myself – we still play the physical CD. So that may be it. OK, so speak a little bit, too, about what you said earlier – about some of these songs being your favorites. Looking back over your career, why weren’t the songs you said were your favorites, why weren’t the ones that were on your first album?

Davy Carton

“Well, I suppose the ones that were on the first album were all of the big, obvious hits that people were probably looking for. And there’s nothing wrong with them, but they’re quite obvious, if you like. It’s just that I very often like the road less traveled, and with a lot of bands. And strictly for a song like ‘Music I Love,’ which was always kind of a favorite of ours, and because it was on the album we started playing it at shows again. And it’s more popular than we would have realized. And a song like ‘Friday Town’ would have been one of my favorites, and I think it’s just kind of such a distinctive song. You won’t really get that song from any other band. And both are the kind of songs that I really like – both very distinctive and maybe a bit off the main drag.”

Well, talk about songs such as “N17” or “I Useta Lover.” Twenty-five years later, what do those songs mean to you? When you play them or hear them, how do you feel about them?

“Well, the feel like really old, great friends of mine. And they feel like friends that have brought us around the world and to interesting and exotic places that we never would have gotten to without them. And they feel like friends that have made loads of other friends for us, and just made life easier for us. I mean, if we hadn’t those songs, we’d probably be a band that may or may not have survived at a lower level, maybe not have been able to do the traveling that we did, maybe not have been able to develop the audience that we did.

“But those songs that go out there and – it’s like going out over the trencher [laughs]. Go out over the top and stick their head out and are brave, and are able to make the roads for the band and make an audience come and see us, and make people aware of our existence, we’re very, very grateful for them. And I would never, ever criticize them or say I was fed up with them, because they’ve been great songs to us. And they’re good songs, as well, and you have to love all songs a bit like children. But some of them are just going to be a bit more sociable than others.”

[Laughs] I read that “I Useta Lover” was chosen the No. 1 hit of the past 50 years in Ireland. That’s pretty amazing.

“Yeah. I can’t, I can’t even … that doesn’t register for me, because when you see the list of songs beside it, and to think that people voted for our song, it’s just incredible. It’s surreal, and I’m still waiting for somebody to pinch me and wake up with that one, because that’s pretty much had to believe for me.”

Um, I’m going to use the opportunity speaking about that to ask this question: You know, you guys are so huge, obviously, in Ireland. But you’re sort of at more of a reserved level in the U.S. And I wonder why. Why do you think you did not become the U2 of the United States?

“Well, first of all, the obvious thing would be that we never had a big record company push us, like U2 would have had. So our audience really grew incrementally to people coming to the shows and coming to the next show and bringing their friends, and they bringing their next friends to the next show. And while that’s a very, very solid way of building an audience, it’s never going to be the kind of wave building an audience without mass media that would bring it to, like, arena or stadium level. I’m not saying we would have ever been able to get that arena or stadium level, because I think you need to be a certain type of band and a certain type of animal to be operating at that level. It might not be our natural habitat at all if we were to get there.

“So I think we’re very, very happy with the audience that we have. I mean, we play a venue as prestigious as the House of Blues in Boston, which is an amazing privilege and pleasure to play at that level of venue. But then again, some of the venues you play on Tuesday, Wednesday nights in smaller towns, smaller theaters, can be as much fun and as rewarding as the bigger shows. So while the bigger shows are great for your profile and they help to pay the bills and they help to make everything happen, they’re not the be-all and end-all of being the band. And really, everybody can’t be U2, arena and stadium level. So I think we’re quite satisfied with the level we’ve been able to operate at and really have no regret. As I said, even if we had made it, I don’t know if we’d been able to have made it up there and even if we had, I’m not sure it would have been any more enjoyable.”

Yeah, I have to tell you, when I saw you, I loved the passion with which you guys play. As a fan, I was much happier to see you in the size venue I saw you than I would have been in an arena or stadium, you know?

“Yeah. I went to see Springsteen in the RDS [Arena] in Dublin – it’s a soccer stadium – and you know, the band was brilliant, he was brilliant, the show was fabulous, he sang brilliantly, the song list was interesting, everything about it was good. But I was 100 years away, so it was just – it doesn’t work on an ant farm, I think. If you had seen the same show in a proper theater, it would have been a standout night of your life, but not at 100 yards away. I mean, when they came on stage, I could hardly see the screens, never mind the stage. It’s just over-popularity, I’m afraid.”

[Laughs] Yeah. And I’m going to ask you to not only speak about 25 years with the album, but 25 years as a band. Now tell me what your feelings and position are after this sort of yard mark with The Saw Doctors. How do you feel after all these years?

“Well, I love it. I don’t think I could ever find anything that I would prefer to do, because it’s a lovely lifestyle. I love to travel and going to different places. I love making new friends, I love all the different food and drinks you get to sample.”

[Laughs]

“And then the fact that a few hundred people and sometimes a couple of thousand people spend a couple of hours with us and they enjoy themselves. It’s very satisfying and uplifting to have that happening for you four or five nights a week on a tour. So the whole thing is a very satisfying and uplifting experience. So I just can’t complain about it. I love it very much.”

Hey, I didn’t ask you, but I want to. How did you guys end up doing the song “Downtown” with Petula Clark?

“Well, we have this funny little piece at the end of the show you might be familiar with. We have [the song] ‘Hay Wrap,’ where we insert maybe sometimes relevant songs -- relevant to the location or maybe relevant to the date or maybe whatever – it’s just a song we love. So if we’re in New York, we might do a verse and chorus of a Ramones song. In Boston, we’ve done The Cars … just different references. Last year on the tour we did ‘Daydream Believer’ in honor of Davy Jones.”

Yup, I remember that.

“So one of the songs we did over the years was ‘Downtown,’ and we just did the verse and chorus of it, and you could see that the whole crowd loved it. It’s one of those songs that’s fallen into the folk memory of people. And so we had that idea of the song being a cover version, maybe, or a Christmas single up our sleeve. And the producer was in touch with Petula Clark’s manager and mentioned it to him. And we didn’t really expect them to be interested, but they came back and said Petula would be interested in making a guest appearance on the song if we recorded it. So we booked a studio in London and went over, and we recorded a backing track and she came in and did her bit, and she was a complete star. She’s 80 this year, but she’s a very spritely woman for 80 years old, and she’s a complete, complete star.

“It’s a great song, and it’s amazing that she came and guested on it, and it got to No. 2 in Ireland for us. So it kept us up in the public eye for the Christmas stuff in 2011.”

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JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.